DR CHET SPEVENS | Finance Expert | CONTACT
Hi, I’m Dr Chet Spevens, property investor, intergenerational landlord and finance expert.
Through this column, I’ve been able to shift the dial on the conversation Australia is having with itself when it comes to wealth creation in this country.
This week’s topic is in response to a wave of letters I received from landlords wishing to understand the ways an astute property investor can negatively gear their investment properties.
Firstly, what is negative gearing? Novice landlords tend to think that negative gearing occurs when the cost of owning a rental property outweighs the income it generates each year. This creates a taxable loss, which is then offset against other income like your wage, to provide tax savings.
Yet what novice landlords don’t understand is that this type of negative gearing results in diminishing returns over time. As most long-lived landlords will tell you, eventually even tax deductions can become quite boring.
At a certain age, to feel any kind of emotion anymore the long-lived landlord must journey to the pinnacle of self-actualisation and negatively gear the intangible elements of power dynamics that play out in the eternal cosmic ballet between landlord and tenant.
Let me explain.
There are tenants in this world, those poor third-world citizens who are yet to decide for themselves to have a go to get a go.
Then there are the second-class citizens, that well-meaning yet pitiful segment of the population who are paying off a mortgage.
Then there’s us. The chosen people. The select few who not only own their own home outright, but a couple of investment properties to boot.
We are Gods amongst mere mortals. All shall fear us and despair. And while tax deductions do satiate a landlord’s bloodlust somewhat, the deeper hunger can only be quenched by the lecherous sucking of another human’s vital life force: their dignity.
Thus we negatively gear our tenant’s dignity through what I call the ‘death by a 1000 cunts’ approach.
Using your vast capital resources, you bring into your employ an army of assholes like real estate agents, energy providers, public servants etc., and you make them harass your tenants on a daily basis until the tenant experiences that debilitating ‘its just one thing after another’ sense of grief, you see?
We turn their gas off, the real estate agency sends them a rental increase notice, we threaten to evict them if they don’t get their dog put down, the options are only limited by the landlord’s imagination.
While this may seem like a lot of work, one must remember that all this keeps the tenants in their rightful place, and us in ours.
